Slashdot Mirror
The Substance of Style
"Those old sci-fi movies were wrong. the 21st century doesn't look at all the way they said it would. We citizens of the future aren't wearing conformist jumpsuits, living in utilitarian high-rises, or getting our food in the form of dreary-looking pills. On the contrary, we are demanding and creating a stimulating, diverse, and strikingly well-designed world. We like our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our backpacks and laptops to express our personalities."
Postrel's writing is easy to read and the text flows effortlessly. Her opening chapter ("The Aesthetic Imperative") describes how manufacturers and other businesses cannot escape style issues. Starbucks is a recurring example: she says "Curmudgeons may grouse about the price of its coffee, but Starbucks isn't just selling beverages. It's delivering a multisensory aesthetic experience, for which customers are willing to pay several times what coffee costs at a purely functional Formica-and-linoleum coffee shop." In a crowded and incredibly competitive marketplace, style is one of the few ways to differentiate yourself.
In chapter two, "The Rise of Look and Feel," Postrel describes the changing role of aesthetics over the past century. She discusses the rise of mass production, 1930's trends of streamlining everything (why should a toaster be aerodynamic?), wartime utilitarianism, and businesses' changing emphasis on style. Much of this, she says, was spurred by the rural-to-urban population shift. As cities grew, niche markets became concentrated enough that businesses could cater to them. Markets fragmented and elements of niche styles were adopted and transformed by the mainstream.
Chapter three ("Surface and Substance") looks at the power of pretty surfaces. The discussion ranges from Hilary Clinton's hair, to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in 2001. Do surfaces have genuine value? Postrel definitely thinks so.
The fourth chapter ("Meaningful Looks") studies the messages that can be conveyed by aesthetics. "Identity is the meaning of surface," Postrel says. "Before we say anything with words, we declare ourselves through look and feel: Here I am. I'm like this. I'm not like that. I associate with these others. I don't associate with those." Look at punk rockers for a great example: at the same time punks are rebelling against society, they are conforming to tenets and garb of their sub culture.
Chapter five ("The Boundary of Style") explores the impact of aesthetic choices on those around you. Much of the chapter deals with architectural issues and building codes or deed restrictions. I think it is one of the more balanced chapters and, as someone who has just bought his first home in a deed-restricted community, had a lot of material that I found very interesting. By the end of the chapter, I disliked deed restrictions even more.
The final chapter is called "Smart and Pretty." It revolves around the idea that "pretty or smart" is a false dichotomy. Making things beautiful or interesting is as important as making them work. Postrel goes one step further and cites the work of usability guru Donald Norman, who argues that attractive things actually work better. I have a hard time explaining it, but I agree. Hammering out text on my iMac is a different experience than doing the same on my Windows or Linux box. The Apple machine oozes with creativity. Maybe it's contagious?
Postrel's argument for the value of aesthetics is definitely one-sided, but I wouldn't go so far as to call her a cheerleader. Her logic is solid, intertwined, and backed up with thirty-two pages of notes at the end of the book. The flaw in the book lies in the arguments she doesn't make -- specifically, she doesn't spend much time on dealing with misleading surfaces (facades). For a few pages she talks about people who dress not for who they are, but for who they aspire to be. I would have liked to see more about those who display whatever it is they think you want to see. Politicians do this for a living.
Unless you belong to the adornment-is-for-fools camp, you will enjoy this book. Its subject is one that I have never devoted much thought to, but after reading The Substance of Style, I can't help but be more critical of the surfaces around me and I can better appreciate the ones that are well designed.
You can purchase The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Right On!!
DOS 5.0 baybeee!!
Nerds are superior--they can do anything others can do, but sometimes they choose not to. When they've killed everyone else, there will still be aesthetics.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
our email is filled with HTML
Hey, speak for yourself there buddy!
1) Our software is skinnable -- yes
2) our email is filled with HTML -- umm, no.....just the crap advertisements
3) our cases glow with colorful lights -- yes, the more the better
Another wanky book about aesthetics. I know what I like - fuck everyone else. I think that is true for all great artists, designers, coders etc.
whether in clothes or computers, it seemd that i am still always out of style. what we really need is a book on how to keep everything in style...that would be useful. that way i will know that my computer doesnt look cool enough and my shirt doesnt fit right....and thus explains why i dont have a girlfriend....
xao
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
Is Cory R. just Jon Katz's pen name? I haven't read a story so, so, how do I say? Forcefully irrelevant in far too long. Thanks Cory!
"Graphic design is pervasive and expected."
Good design, however, is in short suply. Any jackass with a copy of photoshop and a digital camera thinks that they're a pro, and the number of pretentious wannabe designers and "artists" that the internet has spawned theatens to ruin the world... OK, maybe not ruin the world, but it sucks.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Strunk and White's Elements of Style addresses the type of verbose writing used in this book review.
"Avoid needless words."
Best Windows Freeware
What about those who adopt "style" over "substance"? One can go too far the other way as well.
We just started caring about the aesthetic? No way! It has always been the case we care about style. And manufacturers love it as its always changing nature is a form of planned obsolescence. Your stuff can go out of style before it stops working. Simply apply the fashion industry ethics to consumer goods. Hardly new, if you ask me.
From airport terminals decorated like Starbucks to the popularity of hair dye among teenage boys, one thing is clear: we have entered the Age of Aesthetics. Sensory appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live and work.
We expect every strip mall and city block to offer designer coffee, a copy shop with do-it-yourself graphics workstations, and a nail salon for manicures on demand. Every startup, product, or public space calls for an aesthetic touch, which gives us more choices, and more responsibility. By now, we all rely on style to express identity. And aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes.
In this penetrating, keenly observed book, Virginia Postrel shows that the "look and feel" of people, places, and things are more important than we think. Aesthetic pleasure taps deep human instincts and is essential for creativity and growth. Drawing from fields as diverse as fashion, real estate, politics, design, and economics, Postrel deftly chronicles our culture's aesthetic imperative and argues persuasively that it is a vital component of a healthy, forward-looking society.
Intelligent, incisive, and thought provoking, The Substance of Style is a groundbreaking portrait of the democratization of taste and a brilliant examination of the way we live now.
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
A package management system. You could then just apt-get update your clothes every six months. You just need to hold out for nano-clothes my friend.
when I started to read the story I couldn't help but think of writing style = "Jon Katz".
"Provided by the management for your protection."
wow! Of course the initial responses are all useless. (;
The review sounds more like an overview which, I suppose, is fine for this audience. Style tends to be lacking in the higher geek cultures. As the geek cultures are getting more mainstream (gamers, for instance) style is starting to bleed in. We've got stylish modded (and unstylish) cases for lan parties, stylish high-performance mouse pads (yes, I actually said that, I'm laughing too), and all sorts of style coming in to the PC market.
Style is what user interfaces are all about, that's why a lot of people love the screenshots of Ximian, and people drool over OS X. Even MS is trying with Windows, to put in style (although XP has little to none).
Style is often too overlooked (or too focused on in the wrong fashion). It's had to describe how to mandate the application of style, but not nearly as hard to feel how style works in certain instances.
At the very least, the (over/re)view makes me want to read the book.
Our software is skinnable,
Which is usually turned off since it looks horrible and can eat cycles.
our email is filled with HTML,
Which is ugly, a bandwidth and inbox hog, and completely unnecessary.
and our cases glow with colorful lights.
Who is impressed by showcasing 500 dollars of parts? Heck, even the kid who owns the Honda Civic with the R-type sticker and whaletail put more money into it. And both are equally lame.
Problem is that aesthetics are usually misguided attempts at ergonomics that fail... horribly. Nothing like taking a bloated user-unfriendly piece of crap and making it a 16 million color bloated user-unfriendly piece of crap. I'd rather folks spend time making software useful instead of trying to polish a turd. This is usually why Apple's ergonomics wipe the floor with Microsoft's misguided attempts at flash.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Since the dawn of civlization man has always lusted after the shiny pretty things over the dull simple things.
I'm thinking back in the 70's people still handed over cash for the rhinestone covered clogs and passed on the plain leather ones whenever possible.
Maybe a more interesting study would be in the psychology of why we pick the stylish clear box over the beige one? Are we collecting pretty objects to attract mates? If so, I should have bought that new Mac!
I'm thinking it's more the case that the author has "discovered" that there is a difference in styles from ten years ago.
--
hecubas
Hecubas
"Good design, however, is in short suply. Any jackass with a copy of photoshop and a digital camera thinks that they're a pro, and the number of pretentious wannabe designers and "artists" that the internet has spawned theatens to ruin the world.."
The price of freedom.
Who's going to be the "gatekeeper" of good design? Most "consumers" only have a gut level feeling for what's good design, and we all know how variable that is. Although Donald Norman's book "The Design of Everyday Things" does show at least some guiding principles, that can simplify the task.
"many of us (techies) lust after Apple hardware which can command a premium price in part because of its styling"
???
Can we get a slashdot poll on that? If the question is "Do you want a Mac?" I'm guessing "No" is easily going to win out over "Yes, but they're too expensive".
Join Team Slashdot at Folding@Home
"The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness"
To remake something is to make the assumption it wasn't already that way. But, in reality, everyone likes pretty things. Sure, someone may fork over twice as much for a pretty Mac that's barely comparable to a half-priced PC, but hey...it's pretty.
Is this to say that any product you foist upon the masses, pretty or no, will have some kind of precedence over functionality? Well, that may be a factor, but when you look into price/value, aesthetic value only factors in a small bit. That's why Apple is still way back there with 5% of computer sales with their ultra-modern...I dunno, cheese graters? Meanwhile, some PC companies are ripping Apple's designs and making a PC that can outrun a Mac for a lesser price.
However, in the industry Apple dominates now (MP3 players, for good reason--good product+style+semiaffordable price), they're threatened by Dell, who is supposedly planning a $100 MP3 Jukebox that's a little less aesthetically pleasing, yet (theoretically) just as functional. That, my good friends, will be the point where we truly see if style can be beaten out by utilitarianism.
*Disclaimer-Author is not aesthetically pleasing.
Kids these days. They don't know the difference between classic, and just plain old.
Oddly enough, those of us who are highly technology centered frequently forget that most of the rest of the world is not. As a result, the truly geeky among us probably don't use HTML e-mail, use plain text instead of a fancy font when building a to-do list, and probably don't worry a bit about how our PC looks. The rest of the world, however, want technology to be visually appealing and esthetically pleasing.
Before Windows, who was using computers? Those of us who are comfortable with plain, unvarnished technology. After the toaster-Mac and Windows 3.0 era began, we started to see more and more non-geeks sitting down to use computers. In part, this was the "user friendliness" of the technology, but I suspect it was also because the environment was something the user could modify into a style that was within their comfort zone.
The core tech-heads will always have a no-frills, performance first bias. However, as you look at the rest of the population, and sample the less and less geeky among us, you'll find less interest about pure performance, and more and more interest about style.
Now, before anyone comes slamming down on me as an anti-Mac command-line snob, realize that I find myself in that portion of humanity that DOES care about style issues, and am generally not willing to go for pure performance at the expense of appearance.
For this reason, I have no interest in the Subaru WRX Sti, and prefer the Honda S2000 (style over pure performance). In the case of my iMac, I feel I have a good compromise of style and performance. Even so, I'm pragmatic enough to also own a PC.
I probably represent a bit of a minority on Slashdot, but perhaps not. Consider the icons we show for various topics, and the thoughtful navigation. The layout and functionality of this site isn't just for the gearhead. It appeals to me from a stylistic and "community feel" point of view.
Tim
The power led for my case is so powerful it lights up the entire room. I thought it was so cool till I shut of the lights and realized I couldn't sleep. Looking directly at the led is dangerous enough, but to top it off the reflection from my closet mirror aims directly at my bed. Torn by the desire to get both sleep and leave my computer running at all times I modded my case with a piece of electrical tape and finally fell asleep.
Some people care about making things in this world more beautiful, not just utilitarian.
--- witty signature
No Slashdot reader would ever find this alt. review.
/. reader... but Google actually found it :)/ 0060 186321/002-0758016-4121662?v=glance&vi=reviews
You're right : No
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
"However, in the industry Apple dominates now (MP3 players, for good reason--good product+style+semiaffordable price), "
No where close. iPods represent a minority of the MP3 players being sold. This is nothing like domination.
In fact, iPods are kind of rare. I can go to Target and find 4 or so different brands of MP3 players being sold, but no iPod.
Ah, not always.
I read a magazine article years ago (after Apple II, pre WWW) about a design firm that came up with (among other things) a vacuum that was so attractive it was displayed in a musuem.
The punch line was to the effect of "It never sold well because despite the fact it was lovely to look at it did a lousy job".
More to the point, skins do not scale, and an app designed with a skin that looks good on a 17" monitor in 800x600 won't even work on a 19" 1920x1440 display, not to say anyting about a 480x320 PDA.
Even worse are apps that combine fixed size skins with scalable fonts -- that almost never works out correctly.
Regards,
--
*Art
This is the name of a book that goes into more depth in an area that apparently this book just touches on in Chapter four. It sounds like she just brushes up against a very complex idea that underlines all notions of style which is the interaction between style and culture.
And aesthetics is a really loaded word. You have to wonder about an author who throws around terms like "aesthetics" without establishing some very strict historical definitions of what that means in the context of the work at hand.
If you want to check out that other book, the author's name is Dick Hebdige. It's a book from the eighties that sets out to seriosuly examine what it means to be punk or a rapper and look at how the style influences the culture.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
When I worked for a graphic design company, I was perpetually plagued by the words 'Can you make it look more 3d?'
There was no room for creativity or real design. Sadly, the motivating factor in graphic design isn't to push the boundaries, it's to look like everone else.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
This book has absolutely nothing new to say. Sure there are periods in history whare fashion and style took a back seat to utility, but overall, history shows us humans to be infinately more consumed with appearances and externals than what's under the hood. (Generally speaking mind you.)
Thanks to modern production methods and value engineering, widgets can be made so much faster/better/cheaper that profit margins on material goods are almost nil. So how do you lure customers when the market is so cut-throat? Manufacturers have two choices:
1. Increase Quality - which increases costs and typically wins you fewer customers.
2. Make it look more purdy - Everybody wants one because it just looks cool. Even though it falls apart within a month it doesn't matter. By then there will be a new fad in town. Preferrably it will be a new fad that you have developed.
Guess which one 99% of retailers choose?
Bottom line: Nothing new; just more conveniant.
are NOT, I repeat, NOT aesthetically pleasing.
sig
Maybe we deserve this world ?
You can't beat the default Tellytubbies style with which Windows XP comes. Its deep primary colors shout out profundity while its oversized iconography makes a bold statement that few can ignore. It looks so good I can't bear to turn off my PC. I leave it switched on with the monitor standing next to my stylish Barney dinosaur.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Looking at all these posts I guess he would be severely injured if he said this in real life instead of online...
:-)
Some Programms are skinneable, which is often the only way to make them look alike since the UI they come with is crappy... Otherwise I could live without that feature...
Well my mailfilter moves anything containing html-tags directly into trash, which was a good was to Pavlov my friends into not sending me such, if they wanted me to read the mail...
My computer contains no lights except the network diodes... I don't have stylish windows cut into its cover either, I leave it off
And I always considered those Apples to be buttugly, because they look like a toaster from the '70s... Which reminds me, weren't Macs called "beige Toasters" once?
My guess is, this guy mistakes "aesthetics" and "design" for "visual Overloads" and "Graphic Artists on LSD". Design should be unobstrusive, like FX, it's bad when it distracts you enough to notice it's even there...
Appearance does matter, but your list of stuff doesn't apply to me.
I don't write skinnable apps, and I don't use that feature if they are. My email doesn't have HTML, and I've trained most to not bother sending me that crap.
Colourful lights on computers are just dumb, currently all my computers are backwards under the desk so it was easier to plug the cables in.
I just want a clear and effective appearance, not this gawdy crap people spit out.
I use syntax highlighting in emacs and vim.
My C runs thorugh indent to remain consistent.
I use the default themes in gnome and kde.
My background is a single colour.
I drive an anonymous "anycar" to work, I have white appliances and a beige house. Generally appeance is bland and boring. Oh, and my wife is hot.
You're looking for the skinnable terminal app.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
(If they're based on vector graphics)
That wouldn't stop someone from making ugly ones, of course, but the bit-mapped, one-size-for-all-monitors approach is not the only way skins could be. That there are now a few (and soon will be more) vector-based themes for Gnome and KDE is a good sign, IMO.
(But of course, you are right wrt combining fixed skins with scaleable fonts -- except that is at least only *half* brain-dead. Worse is fixed skins plus fixed fonts, an unchangeable glop.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
All this talk about how style is taking over our lives has already been done some twenty years ago. Jean Baudrillard (well respected french modernist/post-modernist philosopher) argued that we are entering an age of simulation. An age of false idols and images referring not to reality, but to nothing.
When you mod your case, or buy a flashy car you're killing meaning by covering it up with a meaningless pseudo hologram. The need for style has always been driven by the fashion industry and the fashion industry has always killed what was left of the real.
Spend your days coloring and dressing your possessions as much as you want. You cannot hide the terrible truth that we're losing meaning everyday by replacing it with a false image.
That's like still believing that if you have a cell phone you're just being a snob. Wake up. Dressing up in a good style is simply being polite. Just like taking care of your personal hygiene.
BOO! TERRO
As William Morris once said,
``Have nothing in your homes which you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.''
Best of all of course, are those things which are both.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
You ever look around and see just how boring modern buildings are? How everything on your desk is a carbon-copy of everything on everyone else's desk? It sucks. It is dry and boring. We need style to spice things up and inspire us!
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
North america, and its prevailing suburban culture have the worst case of the uglies ever.
Prime example: Brick, spanish tile, paving stones, italian tiles, granite counters and stainless-steel appliances are not beautiful or even asthetically pleasing by themselves or in the way they are used to clonehundreds of generically styled homes in our burgeoning suburbs.
North Americans seem to have this mindset that cost (or expensive materials) = beauty and style. Which is so not the case. The typical new suburban home is just like a scaled down version of Saddam's palaces (the most obvious example ever that money does not buy style).
Of course, what can we expect from a population where many think the boxy, Cadillac Escalade the perfect automobile form.
Frilly things like glowing computer cases are often just fads. They have no improvement on the performance of the machine, its purely for looks. Its kind of like the stupid purple downlights people used to install on their cars: cool when you were the only one, stupid when the jerk down the street got them. Its actually a marketers dream, since once dopey glow-in-the-dark computers have saturated the market, they will 'invent' some new, uber-cool design that everyone has to have, and the cycle will repeat.
Functionality improvements are another thing. While I personally can not stand HTML email, the evolution of the GUI has definately had a positive effect on end user computing (as an admin it does at times make my life a little more difficult though). Personally, I can't wait for MS's replacement for their current FisherPrice looking XP, but the average Joe thinks its the greatest thing since the color TV.
Children in the backseats don't cause accidents. Accidents in the back seats cause children.
- Skinnable software is often an excuse for the default appearance to suck and often creates hundreds of pretty, but unusable interfaces.
- HTML email is waste of space and is often extremely ugly -- especially in the hands of commercial companies.
- I've only seen a few cases with light mods that didn't look like ass.
(Hint: Throwing cold cathode light onto your exposed circuit boards is at about as cool as a riced-out Honda with foot-high spoilers and underside light-kits.)If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Screw fashion. I want functionality.
Starbucks isn't just selling beverages. It's delivering a multisensory aesthetic experience, for which customers are willing to pay several times what coffee costs at a purely functional Formica-and-linoleum coffee shop.
- a statement by someone who has not experienced the superior aesthetics of the best of the old Formica-and-linoleum coffee shops, and of someone who has not experienced the superior aesthetics of a good espresso in the classic sort of Italian coffee shop that Starbucks is a pale immitation of. Starbucks to its credit usually has coffee that's worth more than what the diner this morning sold me for a dollar. Their beans are much better, and cost them twice as much, so of course the coffee they sell costs twice as much too - and the diner makes profit because it also expects most customers to buy food. But the experience of their shops is basically anti-aesthetic, or anaesthetic, numbing. There is no real design there, no real place, just a simulacrum. While they know enough to try to make a pomo virtue of this, it's lame. Still, when in a neighborhood without real Italian espresso, at least the coffee works.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I just saw a video of Paul Rand, who argued that one of the primary qualifications of good (graphic) design was usability-- it had a funny sequence where he was wandering through a hardware store (I think it was shot in the 80s) and making fun of some of the gadgets.
Design with function at the forefront was also an idea espoused by these guys, who some of you may have heard of.
...we hardly knew ye.
"Oddly enough, those of us who are highly technology centered frequently forget that most of the rest of the world is not. As a result, the truly geeky among us probably don't use HTML e-mail, use plain text instead of a fancy font when building a to-do list, and probably don't worry a bit about how our PC looks. The rest of the world, however, want technology to be visually appealing and esthetically pleasing."
There has to be function before form, else you have just a facade. The arguments against HTML mail, are more than just asthetics. It consumes time and bandwith without adding much to the messasge. As for the list, why gussy something up that has the lifespan of a fruitfly? And of course the PC is for most of us hidden "out of sight, out of mind. Besides computers are headed toward pervasiveness, and subsuquently becoming invisable.
"Before Windows, who was using computers? Those of us who are comfortable with plain, unvarnished technology. After the toaster-Mac and Windows 3.0 era began, we started to see more and more non-geeks sitting down to use computers. In part, this was the "user friendliness" of the technology, but I suspect it was also because the environment was something the user could modify into a style that was within their comfort zone."
For those who remember our pre-windows history, computers were used by both geeks, and businesses that needed a tool to get the job done. Businesses have never really been about "pretty", preferring function, for "pretty" has never been percieved as adding to the bottom line. The same however can not be said for those goods and services that were directed toward the consumer.
Explaining "aesthetics" and "style" to many programmers is like knocking down a building with a sack of hammers.
"....and then we slap a GUI on it."
"Has the GUI gone through usability testing?"
"No, we haven't done the GUI yet. Do we need usability testing?"
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
So...did you write this review on the Windows box or the Linux box?
It is an effective tool for datamining! All you IE using drones send your email address to the companies that insert the 1x1 pixel .gif file in the HTML slop that is in the email.
I, on the other hand, use browsers for browsing, and will not have a valid email address associated with my browser. Most of the browsers I have installed or configured use BillG@microsoft as the email address.
Hey, it gets me into anonymous FTP sites, that's all I ask!
...is not easy. It's a time-consuming hobby. Look at the girls that everyone ogles all the time. They spend at least an hour a day making themselves look that way. It's less for guys, but it definitely requires some semblance of effort. You have to pay attention to what people are wearing and saying. Except for maybe a dozen individuals on the planet, style is about conformity. I know how unappealing that sounds to the average geek, but it's the way it is. You can either look good or you can not. It's your choice to make.
Style doesn't come cheap, either. It changes quickly, so that means a lot of new clothes from decent sources. Frequent haircuts. Hair gel.
And then there's personality. While everyone is different, people tend to find common ground in pop "culture." Watch some TV. And spend more time talking to real people and less posting on Slashdot.
In other words, being tragically hip doesn't come easily. If you think it's worth it, it requires a significant investment of time and money. The choice is yours and yours alone...
Ok, I'll bite. Why is this on Slashdot? Because it's important. Style, or more accurately, aesthetics is very important. It's time to let go of the dated notion that some have style and some don't -- that is what contributes to the defeatist perspective that people who care about appearance are insecure. (Tell yourself whatever you want to make yourself feel better -- some other people have to dis people with 'slick' clothes to make themselves feel good about themselves.)
I say raise the bar, make looking good, or at least looking presentable, the norm. Why? Because style and substance are not two separate things, as your hippie grandparents may have lied to you. Style IS substance. From a young age we are set up to believe that "It's what's on the inside that counts", as if there is a mutually exclusive relationship between what's inside and what's outside (the smart / pretty dichotomy mentioned in the book)
Make aesthetics and art a bigger part of North American life, not as a tool to separate the winners from the losers, but to make creativity and cultural considerations a natural part of life. To raise everyone up.
Oh yeah, it's assinine that people make the assumption that if you're a stylish male, you must be homosexual, and that if you're a homosexual male, you must be stylish. This kind of thinking also keeps us in the cultural gutter and perpetuates the antagonistic style VS substance, guy VS gay nonsense.
What. ever. Piece together what you can from the above.
...our cases glow with colorful lights...
Mine doesn't, you dork.
Who the fuck has enough time on their hands to put damn *colored lights* in their PC?
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
You will note that Apple's designs have never included such things. I consider such import-racer aesthetics as those neon lights and see through windows to be the hallmark of people that just figured out that you can stop making cases as beige boxes. The people who knew that all along are making real style statements, that's why Apple makes waves.
Oh, and I have never met an average Joe who likes the XP theme. In fact one thing they ask me when fixing their machine is "how do I turn that bullshit off". They did, however, obey Fitts' law better with the XP GUI. Sad but true.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Good lord, whatever the aesthetic is it is not about "skinnable applications". There are many more useful ideas current regarding the aesthetic in life; one can look at appreciation of a great book - or film - or game, even; or the profound appreciation of a particularly elegant mathematical proof; great art; sublime food; the list goes on.
Particularly in the late 90's in academia there was a huge scepticism toward the "aesthetic" - in literature, for example, the idea that art could be appreciated in any way other than either as a social document (marxist, new historicist, feminist criticism etc.) or as "play" (post modernism etc.) was anaethema. So yes, there is a need for and a move towards embracing whatever the "aesthetic" is.
But pretty lights and skinnable apps ain't it.
Ref: Amazon has this book for the same price as bn.
Spend $7.50 more to get free shipping.
Yup. I remember when Windows first began making waves in the PC world. I and some of my friends who were into computers would sneer at the "training wheels" that just slowed the computer down needlessly and added almost no functionality. If we wanted a menu system, we wrote one with .BAT files, doggone it! And it worked! Of course, we never actually got around to doing that, since we had the entire filesystem memorized. I am forced to admit, however, that I have become spoiled by GUI interfaces over the years, and am forcing myself to learn linux so that I can return to my roots and begin dorking with a command line all over again. My command-line elitism days are over, though. *sigh*
-1, "1337" speak
Skinnable apps are *the devil*.
What I want is an endlessly customizable, CONSISTENT appearance across applications. With buttons as big as possible.
Apps which use their own skins actively fight this.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I do not think that "aesthetics" is the word you are looking for here. "Crap", maybe?
At least I found one three word expression in that article I could agree with.
In fact, I had an original fat Mac once and I gradually grew to hate the interface. Am I the only person around who cares more about the content area of what I'm trying to work on than the glitzy frame around it?
The Mac window model gives you all kinds of controls over the window *frame*. What I wanted was a quick way to indicate "I need to see this patch of text here and that patch of text there on the screen at the same time." I wanted to be able to set up several of these viewing relationships concurrently and toggle among the various exposures as my workflow dictated, with a single keystroke if possible. I certainly didn't want an efficient way to spend my day as a window management tugboat.
I still don't have the GUI that does this the way I want it, but at least I now have two large monitors. I still expend far to many mouse strokes manipulating windows so that I can gain access to window manipulation controls. There's something wrong with that, which we would soon figure out if it wasn't so damn pretty.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In this beholder, the visual inputs connect directly into a highly impatient "getting something done" neuron cluster, which then connects directly to twitchy "can't type fast enough" fingertips.
Sure we all care about aesthetics, but my aesthetics are kinematic aesthetics (eyeball to fingertip) that aren't satisfied by dancing gobs of fruit gelatin.
And no, I don't need mood enhancers from my window management system. I can be a cranky bastard with no help at all. Put that in your fat ass scroll bar and smoke it.
Wow. Surprise. Post modernism comes to tech.
You can get these colored/uv active fans for 2.99! But you then have to pay 9.95 s/h for the first one and 6.95 for EACH additional one.
What a rip off.
Industrial and graphic design are a very non-trivial part of our economy and will never die out as culture evolves. I can't wait until nostalgic TV shows in thirty years feature women with capri pants and those flipped out hair cuts. If you think we laugh at afros and bellbottoms today...you just wait!
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Does that explain the color scheme for the gaming section of /.??
asthetics have been here since the beginning.. there's a reason IBM went with boring beige cases on the first PC's.. they were business, and business wants nothing to do with flashy crap..
Give me a car that has 300hp gets 20mpg and is bland.. i stay outta the view of the cops that way.. i mean.. who really wants a car like a fishbowl that has a flower vase in it??
RICEBOYS.. they're everywhere..
"but i do it because i'm making it pretty"
Yup.. pretty damn ugly.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Plain Jane for me. Function uber alles. Screw style, all I care is that it's cheap and runs X11, VIM, AWK, GCC, GDB, DDD, XV, MUTT, SLRN, and all the other essential tools of life...
bkr
"What I wanted was a quick way to indicate "I need to see this patch of text here and that patch of text there on the screen at the same time." I wanted to be able to set up several of these viewing relationships concurrently and toggle among the various exposures as my workflow dictated, with a single keystroke if possible."
...) among several different workspaces, can have the keyboard-rest-time Kbounce on one, email on another, open browser on another ...
:)
This sounds like the multiple workspaces you can have under the various Linux desktop environments by default, and under Mac OS X and and Windows with software add-ons. (Unless I'm misreading what you're after.)
I can switch with a keystroke (well, a key combination in my cae, though it could be mapped to a single key
Fluxbox is a nice clean way to do this, IMO
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Over 50 million households have computers now in the US. How many of these are burning 600 watt power supplies just to power all the glo- wire and eye candy? Like it or not people, we have to answer for all that energy consumption somewhow.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
1) It is customizeable, and
2) If I'm going to spend all day looking at a computer screen I'd at least like it to be halfway palatable (see #1).
3) Wasn't all the obligatory Windows-bashing already in for the week?
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
We citizens of the future aren't wearing conformist jumpsuits, living in utilitarian high-rises...
My guess is that the writer lives in an urban environment, where most of the architectural build-out is complete.
She obviously hasn't visited the suburbs lately, where the majority of our population lives. If she had, she would see that design is actually replaced by greed as an organizational principle. The developments, the McMansions...none of it makes any sense from a the perspective of design. I can't believe that someone in the "business" of design could mistake surface styling for well thought-out deisgn.
Here's a hint for any aspiring suburban architects: bigger is better. The more square feet you can cram on the lot, the more easily you'll sell your houses.
See? Design is simple!
I find it ironic that an article about substance over style has over 137 comments to it, but every one of them is below my (relatively lax) threshold level. What gives? No substance?
postmodernsideshow.com
Only a techie would think that case mods and skinnable apps equals an "age of aesthetics" "Its clever, but is it art?" Apple has had the brains to hire top-notch industrial design artists to help them out. Other companies are beginning to follow suit but they just don't seem to get "it" yet. This is partly because the economy sucks and there's not enough margin to justify the costs involved with top notch industrial design talent.. But maybe also because the consumer base just doesn't appreciate it that much.. ??
--
om Shanti
I haven't read the book, but the first thing that struck me was the claim that we have entered some kind of "age" of aesthetics. I don't think that that is the case at all. Humans have certainly not been subsisting on the crudest of tools or the simplest things that would work. Take a glance at medieval weaponry and you'll see that even weapons -- objects used essentially for their utility -- portray a tremendous sense of style on the part of their owners and craftsmen. Throughout human history, objects that not only have had a functional purpose, but also appeal to the eye, have always been the mark of the elite and sophisticated. The difference is, I think, that now is the age of the pretty and useful object being available to the middle and lower socioeconomic classes.
I have this theory on geeks and style. I think that we're afraid. For us, logic and functionality are easy, we can have confidence in them, they are a cornerstone to our careers, and our life outlooks. But style is different. Subjective. It is possible to make a great effort at style, whether it is in designing a GUI or dressing for dinner, that fails miserably. And that's scary. And our natural pragmatism makes it easy to scoff at, and whenever we see something with style and no substance, it seems to validate our argument. So many geeks reject anything considered to be superfluous. That is great - but remember, rejection of all style, is still a style in and of itself... Yah, ok perhaps I'm overstating things to evoke a reaction (call me troll if you wish).... but when I see the curmudgeon-ish posts dissing the book because it talks about something that nobody needs in the world, all I can think is "I fear thou protesteth too much" ....
Pixie
don't mess with those geekgrrls
Sorry Virginia, you are not a guru.
Really, today's design trend in computer UI and the web is utter gaudiness. I recently compiled the KDE 3.2 series alpha and loading it's default look is kinda shocking. Same with that Windows XP and OS X. Give it a rest, people! Stop with the fussing already!
How well does CSS Zen Garden stand up to scrutiny when you actually have to read the text. . . er, filler? I had a shocking design revelation (once again) a few weeks ago when I got religion looking at Craigslist, and that is that simplicity is chic (ampersand iacute;).
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
On the contrary, we are demanding and creating a stimulating, diverse, and strikingly well-designed world. We like our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our backpacks and laptops to express our personalities
Maybe so, but Unix guys like me want my tools to WORK!. Take the building a house analogy. When you walk into a finished home, it's the paint and fabrics you notice. But that house was built in the rain and cold by framers and drywallers who use simple, ugly tools like hammers, drills and saws. Tools should be simple and most of all reliable.
Building a home with "Windows" is a nightmare. Lock-ups, crashes, special case API's and the endless "need another do-it-all tool" makes programming Windows expensive and painful. I agree that Mac and Windows look prettier than most Unixes, but Mac is now a Unix-variant, and all the style is built on after the muddy and dirty gut work was done using small, reliable tools.
I think most programming projects simply fail to finish. They get it working well, but then forget to put on the style and panache. Microsoft tries to build with complex tools, and pays the price with their bloated, endlessly insecure crap code.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
As an artist and a programmer, I'm always fascinated by this sort of thing. I think people who have skills in both have a good edge, and not just for the obvious reasons like "we can make cool Doom characters."
I think there's alot of overlap. We typically think asthetics=subjective programming=objective, but there's alot of cross-over, maybe to the point where they are actually very similar. For example, any language generally provides many different ways of doing a task. The "beautiful" way is the one that is simple, fast, scalable, etc. There are rules (design patterns) for helping you come up with that "beautiful" code, but any coder will tell you there's more to it than just following rules (otherwise code generators would replace us all!).
Similarly, with painting or other arts, where one might expect more subjectivity, there are rules for creating beautiful work: It helps to work general to specific, light to dark, etc. There's even mathematical principals such as symmetry, golden mean and fibonacci sequence that come into play.
I haven't read the book, but I agree with the idea that there's something about people that makes us want to see beautiful things, and that there are rules for beauty that cross cultures and disciplines. Personally, i think it is that we recognize what Mandelbrot called "The Fingerprint of God". Agree or no, I think most would agree software is better when it tries to accomplish "beauty" both in the UI and in the code itself.
while we're copying other people's reviews:
From Booklist
It's enough to make your head hurt, this very conscious, contemporary, intellectual interpretation of Keats' "Beauty is life, life, Beauty." On the other hand, social scientist and author (The Future and Its Enemies, 1998) Postrel brings together some very compelling arguments, insights, and examples about the value of aesthetics today. Nothing is quantified; instead, she points to qualitative examples like the GE Design Center in Selkirk, New York, devoted exclusively to the creation of new plastic forms. To Starbucks and the iMac, each a symbol of looks that sell--at a higher price. And to the 1,500-odd different drawer pulls available at the Great Indoors. Aesthetics is how we make the world around us special, a feature recognized as early as 1927, when adman Ernest Elmo Calkins opined about "Beauty the New Business Tool" in the Atlantic. It enhances communications (cf. PowerPoint) and identities (Hillary Clinton's hair). Ask any Afghan woman who risked prison to style her hair and paint her face; aesthetics is at one with life.
Barbara Jacobs
Copyright (C) American Library Association. All rights reserved
From Publishers Weekly
At the Great Indoors, a hugely successful department store chain, customers can choose from among 250 lavatory faucets. If that represents too little variety, there are more than 1,500 distinct models of drawer pulls. Like it or not, we live in an age where we can minutely dictate every aesthetic choice, to an extent our ancestors would certainly have found disturbingly wasteful and superficial. It is this censure that New York Times economics columnist Postrel is dead-set on dismantling. Aligning herself against "pleasure-hating" modernists like Walter Gropius and Adolf Loos, Postrel adopts the position that fashion has meaning. One of her argument's charms is that she allows Joe Q. Ray-Ban his own justification for his purchase ("I like it") against the interpretations of theorists who insist an interest in surfaces is linked with deception, status or falsehood. Postrel's apt example of the proliferation in toilet-brush design is an effective rebuttal against such theorists-after all, nobody buys a sleek toilet brush to impress neighbors who will never see it, so aesthetics must constitute much of the rationale. Increasingly, form is simply part of the function. Postrel begins by explaining that appearance has a meaning commensurate to loftier values, then examines the many manifestations of this truth. While her argument is intellectually sophisticated, Postrel's journalistic training ensures the examples she cites are well-chosen and the prose remains crisp and readable. Gracefully representing one endpoint of a certain debate, this ambitious book may someday become a classic of the genre.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Although many of us may hate to admit it, aesthetics matter even to hard-headed techies. Our software is skinnable,
I'm not sure that colorizing my gcc output counts as skinning.
our email is filled with HTML
Not in pine, it's not. Detecting HTML is, in any event, a nearly 100% certain way of rejecting spam. No individual with anything worth saying is saying it in HTML emails.
and our cases glow with colorful lights.
Pfaw. The power and drive activity lights are indeed colorful, but adding more would only mean more waste heat to dispose of.
Graphic design is pervasive and expected.
In magazines. I tend to omit it from my source code, though.
Programming style is debated endlessly
Yes, but only in terms of readability and maintainability, and occasionally compatibility with some editor feature or other. Programming "style" wouldn't be recognizable as such by an interior designer.
and many of us lust after Apple hardware which can command a premium price in part because of its styling.
I suspect that many more of us lust after high-performance hardware and don't care much how it looks, especially since there's only so much styling that can take place in one or two rack units.
The age of aesthetics is here
The age of fluffy bullshit has been here since the first time neolithic potters tried to cover up inferior clay with pretty designs.
Real beauty comes from elegant design. Form, if it is beautiful, is an inevitable expression of elegant functioning. Mathematicians and programmers understand this well; l337 dudes who think case styling makes them kewl are just wanking off.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
And besides, who are you trying to impress?
Blar.
And here I read this article in lynx, a text-only browser that shows me raw, text-only web pages. Aesthetics? Ha!
Maybe so, but Unix guys like me want my tools to WORK!
Are you implying that fashion has to come at the expense of function? I want my tools to work, but I also want them to have an appealing look and feel.
(clutching my Bosch, Porter Cable, and Milwaukee power tools)
Seriously, though, many geeks I know really enjoy construction. I know I do. It's very nice to have quality tools and be able to build stuff. I think that this is one of the marks of a real engineer -- we like to create. Not just things that look nice -- though it is better to create something that looks nice -- but to create things that are useful.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Any jackass with a copy of any high-end creation utility thinks that they're a pro. I think it's due more to the empowerment of the tools than anything else, which is both a blessing and a curse. Tools such as Dreamweaver (for HTML), Acid (for music), and Visual Studio (for code) make anyone feel like a pro since they're so easy to use and make decent-looking products with.
;]
If the things that they helped the user do were not as marketable (like word processing... how many word processing gurus have you seen out there thanks to Word?), then there would be less people assuming that they had mastered complex skills like coding, music, and graphic design from using high-end, professional-grade tools. When there are tools that great, there will inevitably be a lot of people who think that they have talent simply because they can use that tool. Just look at Slashdot...
There was no room for creativity or real design
Real design is the ability to work within customer constraints while simultaneously expressing your individual creative spirit.
Most of the nerds are wearing swag from the last conference. :)
Gaudi got in a lot of trouble for designing and building the classics he created 100 years ago. He ignored the city planners and dared them to do something about it. Eventially his buildings became reason enough to visit some towns for their recignized beauty and sculpture. I'll bet they wouldn't let you create another one in those towns though.
In other words, I encourage everyone to ignore as much as possible building codes (but understand why they are there, Gaudi's didn't design leaky roofs, unlike Frank Loyd Wright, and they don't fall. Today they would be well insulated) to creat something nice. I could never live in a lot of townhomes I've seen because they are all exactly the same grey color, with the exactly same front, and grass - yet they keep selling.
Be different.
It seems this review is mostly synopsis.
I guess I hope for an informed, opinionated discussion of the book's material and its value, rather than a chapter summary.
ShoutingMan.com
by the biggest dicklicker on Slashdot, Sir Sucks-a-lot.
You copied the PUBLISHERS' blurb. No wonder it was positively glowing.
I recommend not buying the book because it's as full on "insight" as this loser's posts. It's only 6 chapters long, and if it was really going to convicne me it'd have to be a lot longer and features twice as many references. Just pointing things out that go with the author's pet theory does not a good argument make.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Starbucks coffee is far better than any drip coffee. But Starbucks can't hold a candle to the average Seattle cafe. And the average Seattle Latte is nothing compared to a Latte picked at random from New Orleans.
His comment did not warrant a response as it was vacant of anything resembling an argument or relevant observation.
By throwing in the word "fag", he gets the attention of trolls who would love to start a flamewar.
Is there room on Slashdot for trolls who troll the trolls? Metatrolling?
Also, it is not also polite to not judge a person by the clothes that he wears? Hygiene is a necessity, not an aesthetic, hence it is a poor analogy you make.
This post is going nowhere. I think I'll just cut...
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Hello? Bueller?
Bah, your email may be filled with HTML. I have a spamblocker.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Gads! For a minute there I thought my JonKatz filter broke.
Mmmmm...Soylent Green.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Skinnable software is often a pain to use ("Whenever a programmer thinks, 'Hey, skins, what a cool idea', their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.") HTML email (as was previosuly pointed-out) is almost always spam, and case mods are for the silliest of nerds.
attractive things actually work better
Beautiful women are sometimes good in bed, but not always. I wouldn't say there's a correlation.
Plain women sometimes totally rock a man's world -- a remarkable wake-up call for one's understanding of women.
-kgj
Dallas is probably the most soul-less place in the Southwest. It's full of vapid, consumeristic, shllow, plastic people who long ago turned to consumerism to justify their self-inflated egos and collective false sense of entitlement.
If Texas ever needed an enema, Dallas is where the tube would go in.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Is an abomination. I do *not* use HTML in e-mail, and I don't *read* e-mail with HTML.
:-)
I hate when people make assumptions about what "everyone" does. Specially when they are wrong.
(8-DCS)
but Starbucks isn't just selling beverages. It's delivering a multisensory aesthetic experience,
Oh please...people pay Starbucks' exorbitant prices because that's what's in. It's about all about image. It's all about "how do others see me, and how can I make myself look cool?" It's the plastic, superficial existence that we've adopted as part of our day-to-day lives, that stresses cool over things that matter, like integrity, legitimate achievement, and character. While I might be inclined to believe that Starbucks once offered a more unique experience, that was shot to hell when they decided that it was much cheaper to make each store a nearly exact replica of every other. Now it's all about image and cool.
ignorant shitbags sound off about other ignorant
shitbags
fuck all of you
"and many of us lust after Apple hardware which can command a premium price in part because of its styling."
I can't speak for anyone else. But I'll tell you why I love the "Apple Style". Understatement. In a Calvin Kline 3 button suit kinda way. Clean lines, no exaggertaions.
I'm not an Apple user, but I can't tell you how strong the urge is to stuff my Linux box components into one of those new G5 cases.
The current wave of Chenbro/Chenming/Enermax/(fill in your fav windowed, SUPER BRIGHT RETINA BURNING LED, cathode light, gaudy/guido front panel/ workstation case but has a door that opens to the left and is also sold as a (cough GREEN cough) Chinese server) case.
Do i sound bitter that I can't find a decent ATX PC case?
--
Ah - another groovy marketing book which rips off 70s French theory - Pierre Bourdieu this time.
Got love the post Naomi Klein world:.
Step 1: Find a groovy French theory
Step 2: Find a bunch of anecdotes which even MBA types will recognise
Step 3 : Repackage it with a shiny cover and moral aesthetic suitable for Marketing 101
Step 4: Reap lifes rich rewards and flaunt your good taste
Seems she has um, borrowed from Pierrer Bourdieu's "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste".
It first came out in the 1970s in French.
In his book Bourdieu defines the term to be behavior "which seeks distinction in the crude display of ill-mastered luxury" .
You've gotta love that!
As Bourdieu defines taste people needing taste to ensure that the objects, that is the brands they are consuming, are classifying them to be of the correct social strata.
To be guilty of either crudeness of taste or seeming to be unused to luxury is tantamount to social suicide.
Bourdieu theorizes economic power to be first and foremost the power to keep economic necessity at arm's length. That is why it universally asserts itself by the destruction of riches, conspicuous consumption, squandering, and every other form of gratuitous luxury.
Wait there's more!
Bordieau quotes some guy called M**x (No Brothers)
Bourdieu suggests (quoting M**x) that " man is initially posited as a private property owner i.e. an exclusive owner whose exclusive ownership permits him both to preserve his personality and to distinguish himself from other men, as well as relate to them . . . private property is man's personal, distinguishing and hence material existence".
quoting from the qoute:
"We citizens of the future aren't wearing conformist jumpsuits,"
I did an interview last friday at a distant trendy coffee shack. With the exception of myself, and the clue-stick aware person whom I'll be doing the start-up with, there was 2 basic types of attire: suit-tie-wingtips or docker-poloshirt.
"living in utilitarian high-rises,"
Said interview was in the town I grew up in. Said coffee shop was part of a strip mall surrounded by condo's and other pre-fab housing in what used to heavy woods. In essence, someone sold the 40 acres and someone else with a bulldozer came in, plowed everything over and slapped the same structure up every 20-40 feet. (and then slapped in a couple of toothpick things and called 'em trees).
"or getting our food in the form of dreary-looking pills."
So, after the interview I thought I would see if I could find the little stream and the swamp I used to sit by and contemplate the meaning of the universe. Never found it (probably diverted and filled in, respectively). On the other hand, I did watch Gorden Food Service deliver the "dreary-looking" ingrediants to the scones served where I had just had a rather mediocre cup-o-joe.
"On the contrary, we are demanding and creating a stimulating, diverse, and strikingly well-designed world."
Some of 'us' may be attempting to demand and even create this rather nonsequitor conclusion. Based on the review, I suspect the author is guilty of the line from The Princess Bride when it comes to the words stimulating and diverse. Looking around, I see less and less in this world which I would consider well-designed (let alone strikingly so).
"We like our vacuum cleaners and mobile phones to sparkle, our backpacks and laptops to express our personalities."
What "we" is this? I won't be presumptous and speak for some one else, but *I* would rather have my personality expressed by *me* and not some marketting drone whose goal is move some oh-look-shiney piece of plastic which will end up in a land fill in 5 years.
All in all sounds like a book destined for the 75% off pile at the book store. And Why-oh-why do I keep thinking of the leaving-the-family scene from The Jerk?
James Dyson once said something to the effect of, "people imagine the designer as the guy in a salmon-coloured shirt who comes in at the end and says 'put fins on it.' It's not like that--good products come from good design, which goes hand in hand with good engineering from the ground up."
The more I hear about style as a separate field, or as something different from form function and execution, the more I think that someone has missed the point. Style can't be separated from the product itself. Talking about it in isolation, or treating it as though it were different from any other aspect of creation is silly.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Plenty of nerds can't do plenty of things. One of the classic things is dress well. This is changing, somewhat. Nerds still, in general, lack style. I agree that it is probably by choice. It probably boils down to the person feeling that having style, for instance, is useless and doesn't serve that person's purpose.
The color schemes and design shapes are pretty slick too...
Yes....That's right...I went there.
But discussing style for style's sake, with all its superflous jargon is something that the average hacker never appreciated, a lacuna that, I believe, has more to do with education than nature; appreciation of art doesn't come easy.
More than mere navel gazing.
Sorry, dude, I don't know anyone who actually *knows* something about computers and software or uses such things beyond games who has cool lights, uses html mail, wastes the time to skin their apps, wants a mac or has otherwise gussied up their systems to 'look cool'. Ok, a few want a mac, but only so they can see what they can do with darwin.
Mostly, techies (the knowledgable form) spend energy on making the thing run as best as it can.
I do know people who expend great effort on the things you mention. They think it looks really cool! Ooooh! Aaaahh!
Aside from that, they're pretty clueless.
Thats been my experience...YMMV
-xski
how do you get the taste of moderator dick out of your mouth?
You're looking at the downside of the "invisible hand" here, methinks.
Take anything by the Sharper Image for example. Their corporate motto is apparently "Style over Substance", though they are only one of the most blatant. A specifically good example would be their "Ionic Breeze." Selling points? Quieter than HEPA filters (that's because HEPA filters actually DO something). Empty BOXES are quiet too, and pollute your air less. Standardized tests show the Ionic Breeze's ability to remove airborne particles to be almost negligible. Tests also show it doesn't trap the particles it does catch very well such that they can be re-introduced to the environment. It produces levels of the oxidant gas ozone that accumulate over time, reportedly less than 0.05 ppm after 24 hours, but what after 48? The EPA's safe limit is 0.08, are you sure your ventilation is sufficient to keep it below that level if you have it on all the time? Do you trust the EPA's limit as being actually safe? (they dropped it to 0.08 from 0.12 in 1997 as apparently, 0.12 wasn't good enough). And what does it matter if the darn thing doesn't even remove dust and germs out of your environment worth a darn, because most dust and germs are not airborne? Oh, but it LOOKS SO SEXY.
There are countless products that people buy not because they are tuned into the brilliant aesthetics, but because the intimidation value of the brilliant marketing campaigns that convince them that if they don't have the product, they're deprived. That they need it to shallowly show off they have good taste when they really have no taste at all except that which was sold to them.
My comments:
Page after page of mindless drivel. Incoherent ramblings with little unifying theme or compelling conclusion. The effort required to pick out the few useful bits makes reading the whole thing an exercise in futility. In total, a colossal waste of time.
Virginia Postrel's book however is quite good.
Your claim that aesthetics matter is probably not wrong, but your evidence is utterly off the mark as for me. I've always hated skinnable applications. Take Winamp on windows. Fine application, but would be truly great if it had an easy to use interface by following standard windows practice. XMMS is even worse for usability on linux (you can barely read it on my screen). No, usability isn't the only issue - it even looks ugly because it isn't consistent. Html e-mail, omygoodness. What a scam. It is a pain in the neck. Most clients don't deal with it right. As for my cases glowing with lights - I can't see any at the moment on either of my computers. Graphics design: My web-site www.kiwistrawberry.us is almost graphics free. To make it usable. Graphics is fine when needed, but very rarely is it needed.
An underpowered, slightly overpriced machine with limited expandability - flourished (in my opinion) because of its unprecedented design and use of candy colors.
In fact, Starbucks stores are non-comfortable and unaesthetic by design. Notice I didn't say *un*-comfortable -- they certainly don't want to repel you, but they don't want you to make yourself at home, either. They want you to drop your 4 bucks, drink up and leave.
First, if the age of aesthetics is here, why does Seattle look like a shithole?
We tear down the nice old buildings to build eastern european block houses err...condos.
Whomever is dreaming of the age of aesthetics is 100 years too late (see San Francisco, 1908). Not to be cynical, but Apple Computers and good web design are some of the only stand out aesthetic things in my U.S. world.
I think the age of consumerism and materialism is here in the U.S.... not the age of aethetics. May I emphasize the lack of urban planning, use of crappy contruction materials (in very unaesthetic ways), the lack of zoning on the US west coast; look how bad everyone looks at your average ball game...the fashion du jour is to cover your lard ass with baggy pants that expose your undies. We dont plant trees, we cut them down. We dont ride bikes, we fatten ourselves in military grade vehicles. We suck toxins into our lungs then throw the butt into the street.
Everytown in America is a strip of fast food joints... our most popular store, Wal*Mart, is a windowless cynder-block cell, lit with low contrast floodlights. That sure beats the old Greek agora, Parisian street market, or Middle Eastern souk! Ahhh, but I can pick up a Britney Spears poster and a community-sized package of Cool Wip anytime I want!
The pop music we listen to, the crap we put in our bodies, the sludge that pours from the TV set... you call that aesthetic?
I could rant on... but Ill let others step in.
This book is written very aesthetically and with a substantial amount of style.
Error 666 - SCO source has been found in your Linux kernel. Please remove it.
Formerly kdsolutions
I won't argue against the fact that given two products of equal functionality most people would choose the more aesthetically pleasing one.
However, I'm rather disturbed by the "let's make it pretty by adding useless adornments to it" trend. Marketing needs to understand that simplicity can be aesthetic too. Take Slackware for example. While probably not aesthetic in the typical sense, it *is* beautiful in it its minimalism.
Fight or flight its all the same
Live to die another day
--Ryan
Where is the creativity in dressing stylishly? 95% of those who "have style" only do so because they couldn't get uncool clothing at the Gap if they wanted to. (it certainly helps that the places selling style are the same as those that define it)
The only difficulty a person who cares might have is continuing to afford hundreds of dollars to keep a wardrobe current.
If it were about creativity, it might be worth the effort. "Style" today is nothing more than yet another way to show everyone else how much money you have.
Dressing in good style is polite?!
Is my refusal to drop $50 on a pair of jeans rude?
I'd say it's rather rude to spend more than ~$CAN 30 on any outfit. Take the amount you'd spend at American Eagle to Value Village and drop the difference at a charity for starving children or something...
Both are highly commercialised and expensive, but I know which one I would bother giving money to, and it sure as hell ain't Starbucks.
(Neither of them have the raw sewage taste Tweek's stuff has.)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
also lots of people buy things because they look like big dicks
Not anonymous coward but empty headed easy to forget coward. ^_^
;P
My nick is Mina Murray
"When there are tools that great, there will inevitably be a lot of people who think that they have talent simply because they can use that tool."
So the clearly solution is to design the programms usability just as someone did with 3D Max?
That was a big truth (just as big as bad is my english expression capability), people learns Photoshop and dreamweaverand starts thinking they are some kind of Designer's gurus... as far as sometimes, people studies a career and starts to think that they're Design Gods (Smugs) and must be worshiped trough the WWW. I was no trying to be a jackass with that, I've studied Multimedia and design so I'm quite on the Design Gods category, and I can't stand most of the gurus that by knowing the basics of HTML think they're web designers. Also, I can't stand most of the Gods that copy the idea of a long time dead designers and act as if they had discovered the salt (free translation of a spanish proverb).
May it would be a solution if peopleo through the www learned that design isn't just put 4 well combined colours in a web, but also depends on usability, designs study, programmation vs design, and, for crying out loud, that blue and orange isn't the only colours that fits in a web.
One thing I didn't like about my Shuttle SN45G, the blue power led. I would rather they had used the orange IDE activity light for the power and the blue for the activity light. The Blue is pretty but can be a pain in a dark room. Unfortunately there's no easy way to switch them as they're soldered right to a circuit board with the power and reset switches.